Apricot and Her Two Blackbirds
by Liralen Li
Summary: A street shamen and her two cybered bodyguard try to help out a runaway goblin girl who has far too many people after her for her own safety. The rating is for violence.
1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note**

_This was played using Fred Hick's gaming system "Don't Rest Your Head" but in Carl Rigney's version of the Shadowrun world, where magic and cyberpunk collide. Carl ran the game. Cera Kruger played Apricot, Trip Placker played Rei, and I played Le Merle Blanc. I wrote this, so all the mistakes are mine, and all the awesome descriptions and lines were by the GM or the players. _

_This is the first of at least three parts. There may be more when we can game together again..._

* * *

The monster's bulk pinned Rei to the hard concrete. Its pulsing proboscis reached out, and closed wet and warm against the Rei's eye socket. Rei's hands finally found and closed on the handle of his own curved blade but the weight of the monster pinned the blade up against his own flesh even as his left eye was sucked out of his head. The shock of it made his body writhe, but he refused to scream. With his remaining eye, Rei managed to see the blank skin of the monster's head ripple, pucker, and then an eye popped up, eye lids with lashes flickered, and then an eye the same brown as his own focused on him.

Rei growled at the swarthy magician behind the monster. "Do you really think this is going to stop _me_?"

Rei's words made the swarthy magician cower. The monster gave a bounding hop, chittering as it ran to its master's defense. Idiot. Rei's blade came out, gleaming.

"Y... you're not the girl I'm looking for!"

And the magician and his trick monster fled.

Rei was left holding his empty eye socket, cursing magicians with surprises in their pockets.

It had seemed so simple to start, just some swarthy guy in an expensive, lined long coat threatening a little goblin girl right on the edge of the squats. He hadn't even been carrying obvious weapons, which, out in the Sprawl, was a sure give away that the guy was a mage or just plain stupid. Rei had jumped in, intending to get the guy before he even knew what hit him, when the monster landed on him.

The goblin girl had disappeared.

At least that had worked, she was probably safe for another day. Probably.

Rei got up, steadied himself, and strode off for the free clinic. They cared a hell of a lot more than Doc Wagon, and he knew they'd be well equipped to at least stabilize his wounds. He knew because he paid a good deal of their bills.

* * *

It was the clothing and bag flying out of the third floor window that first caught my eye. The combination of lace and warmth, the particular timber of the "Oh shit!" out the same window, and the tone and vehemence of the rant that emerged from the apartment building moments later, all made me turn towards the noise.

Apricot.

Dressed in layers against the Seattle air, but in frills and covered with hundreds of tiny, beautiful things. Barrettes, braids, brooches, pins, bullet casings, keys, chips, tiny animals, beads, strands of ribbon, string, and metallic wire all woven, glued, and pinned onto her clothing, hair, and headband. Her apricot-colored hair was drawn back enough to show her black roots. The elf-lock she'd always worn glittered from the thin golden chain woven through it. Her black denim jacket glittered colors of all kinds from all the things she'd pinned or glued to it. She was a Renraku runaway, Japanese to the core of her, but wearing, thinning into Street.

She looked flustered, dark eyes wet, the side of her face red. Crap, the guy had _hit_ her. I headed for the door, fully intending to go in and beat the guy up for her, when three idiots in green gang colors headed for her like a wolf pack scenting an injured doe.

"Forget that loser," said the largest of the idiots. "Come with us."

One of them grabbed Apricot's arm. "And, no, that's not just a suggestion."

In my head Lwazi and Mikazuki giggled and remembered Apricot talking streets into eating punks like that and wanted to see that again. I shook my head, borrowed some leg strength, and jumped on the head of the one that had grabbed Apricot's arm. It surprised him enough that she got free, and slipped into the shadow of the apartment building out of my way. Good girl.

Then we all moved together, ten times as fast. I landed, sitting on the ganger's shoulders. My thighs tightened as I put an elbow to the side of his head, and then I threw myself to the side. The choked gargle and then the sudden slump of the ganger under me seemed slow enough for me to put my feet on his chest, and spring off his bulk to aim a roundhouse at the next nearest gang guy's head as well.

He ducked, but too slowly and my foot clipped the back of his head, hard. He staggered. That was when the third guy got smart and while I was in mid-air, used a bat to good effect. I mean, if you can hit a 150 klick fast ball with a bat, a little wire girl just going hundred's not going to be much of a challenge, neh?

Crap, that hurt.

_Stay on the ground._ murmured Dean in the back of my head. Right, right, we can change direction easier on the ground.

I grabbed my shoulder, popped it back in, and nearly blacked out. Luckily I had nine other people watching my back, and Nada or Huyu, one of the really limber ones, took control and dodged, flipped, and slid to the side as the two remaining bully boys tried to take us out.

I thought about Seishin Bunretsu, but no edges were out, no need to escalate this little encounter. Dean growled my assessment, stood us straight up, grounded, and switched from all our speed to all our strength behind one blow. I felt the shock through my bones as he used a straight tkd strike right through the jaw bones of the one unlucky enough to be nearest us.

I was glad he'd used the arm that hadn't been dislocated. The unlucky one fell like a stunned ox. I took back control and the guy with the bat stood back a bit, watching me warily.

I grinned and charged with just my speed. He swung, but this time it wasn't at my back. This time we all saw the swing, hesitated just that moment it took for the tip to go right by us, and then Dean wound up with all our strength and we all hit the baddy in the gut. The breath exploded from him and he cracked the wall behind him when he hit it.

Heh.

Dust filtered down.

Apricot appeared from the shadows. She bent and picked up a key from the sidewalk. I'm not sure if the guy dropped it or not, but you never know with street shamen. She looked at me and shook her head. "You got hurt again."

I shrugged, or tried to, what that shrug did to my shoulder made me grimace instead.

I settled for saying, "It's what I do." Then I looked up at the now closed window, down at the pile of clothing on the sidewalk. "What happened?"

"He was trying to make me to introduce him to you. Stupid jerk."

"You want me to beat him up?"

"No..." Apricot said thoughtfully. "I think I hurt him enough, no need for you to, too. But I really need a place to sleep tonight. Stupid men."

She turned her face so that I couldn't see the side that had gotten slapped, and courteously, I ignored what she didn't want me to see.

I just nodded. Apricot once said, late at night, when she was a little drunk and thoroughly sleepy, that she'd left home so that the things she spoke to wouldn't hurt the ones around her. And after being around her for a while, I could see why. It pleased me that she thought I couldn't get hurt by what she conjured up out of her dreams. Okay... pleased and just a little proud, too, that she thought I could take care of myself against nightmares made real.

That was when Rei walked up, all tall and lithe muscle and handsome enough to make Apricot believe he'd dreamed him. I could see him hiding a stagger every few steps. His black long coat swayed behind him, and he held his hand to an eye that bled red all the way down from his high cheek bone to his hard jaw. Drips splashed on the concrete.

This time it was Apricot who asked, "What happened to you?"

"Oh, got my eye sucked out by a monster."

"You get the good fights," I muttered under my breath even as Apricot tched.

I slid under Rei's free arm, and he growled, but let me stay there and even leaned against me. Yeah, sometimes I do get lucky. We continued in the direction of the free Clinic we usually frequented.

"Oh! Did she wear black leather?" Apricot asked.

"No. It was an actual monster. I was by the Twelfth Street goblin squats when some well-dressed court mage tried to grab a little girl. I stopped him, and then the cheater pulled a monster out of his hat." Rei growled.

The door opened automatically, and I helped Rei in as Apricot chatted up the receptionist, asking about her day. Soon the clinic techs came and took Rei and I into the clinic's main examination room.

As we entered, a Feather Boy sat with his jaw and chest swathed with SmartSkin®. He turned towards us and I realized his jaw was oddly square and thrust forward like a jaguar's, and he'd had the spotted mask and dark line about the eyes of a jaguar tattooed onto his face, eyelids, and forehead. He sketched a bow to the tech and ourselves and slid out the door with enhanced grace.

There were rumors about Feather Boys. Aztechnology never acknowledge the rumors, but one found that if one told the boys something the Pyramids might be interested in, that data often found its way home.

The techs fussed over Rei, muttering about exposed nerves, clamping blood vessels, and brain shock from the injury. Rei subsided on the examination table, and after a while, they weren't working quite as frantically any more.

That's when one of them came to see to me and my shoulder. I got prodded around the aching joint. Mutterings about impacted joint, inflamed bursae, ligament stress readings (no razor girl would leave stupid ligaments unreinforced), anti-inflammatory drugs, joint stabilization, painkillers, and they stuck stuff into me, and suddenly my shoulder felt all better when they were done.

The girl tech said, "You really shouldn't do anything with that arm or shoulder for the rest of the week, Blanc, but knowing you..." She just shook her head and trailed off and gave me another pill and hopefully slung a sling over my shoulder. I gently gave her the sling back. She rolled her eyes, but took it. They could use it on someone else.

I took the pill. The techs at this little shop had never steered us wrong, though sometimes they looked at Rei a little too often. She was glancing at him now, as he got smoothly up from the examination table. I wondered, sometimes, if he had a deal going with them. I rubbed the scar on my rounded ears as I thought. I moved in, and he grinned lazily at me and gave me the smallest shake of his head. I relaxed and hung back. I trusted him to know what he didn't need.

Apricot muttered as we left. "I really need a place to sleep tonight, but until I find one, I guess I need a place to put my stuff. How about we go to the Savage Garden. They're nice about keeping my stuff behind the bar."

A few hundred meters down, Rei stopped to look at a poster on a lamp post. "Hey, that's her!"

"Her?" Apricot asked.

"It's the goblin girl I saved from the wizard." Rei pulled out his phone, got the picture, number to call, and reward amount all in one go. "Price is pretty big for just a kid."

We walked into the seedier part of the Sprawl, and found the Savage Garden looking a bit worse for the wear. It was a low-end bar that had some street cred with the kids in town. The wannabees hung out sometimes, but enough of the real kids stuck with it that the business was okay there.

The bartender and waitress both craned their necks as we came in.

"Yay! It's Apricot!!" cheered the waitress.

"Yeah. Good thing Blanc and Rei aren't scared of Seraphim."

I looked at Rei and his remaining eye looked back at me. One of those looks. Seraphim.

There are orphans in the Sprawl, there always were, and a lot of them had people that would take them in. Families, friends, and even fighting buddies of the parents would all provide homes. The corps would always take in the orphans of employees, the life insurance clauses often specified crèches or even boarding schools that would take kids in. But there were always some kids that fell out of the corps and out of the usual social nets.

Those were 'caught' by the Seraphim. They'd just show up, and if no one claimed a kid, they'd accept the kid for their own. And then later, the kid would show up with a surgical mask over their mouths, marked with a weird symbol, kanji like, but no kanji anyone could read, and never say a word again.

Never. Just silent as a tomb. No wonder they spooked other folks.

Some people claim there's nothing under the mask, or that if you peek under it something dreadful will happen to you; but that's just urban myth. Right?

"Hey, can I put my stuff in the storeroom? And do you have an empty box for my stuff?" Apricot asked, cheerfully.

"Sure, there's lot of old liquor boxes in the store room, help yourself."

She went back into the storeroom and crouched by one of the boxes, a really old one, so old it looked like it might have been made of wood. Ever since the trees Woke Up and their spirits started inhabiting everything that their wood was made into; and enough of them started screaming about sappy murder, there's been a lot fewer wood, cardboard, and paper anything than there used to be. She crooned happily to her found box. Then she plopped her bag of stuff into the box and closed the lid. "There. It's now happy."

The bartender groaned as someone came in the door. "Oh, no, not more of them..."

I turned to look as what seemed a fair-sized number of people came in the door. Then I saw the surgical masks on the lower halves of their faces. Each mask had a symbol on it that looked like it might have been kanji, but not in any script from Earth. They filed in quietly, a few settled around the bar, at the tables, in the chairs. A few simply stood about, staring into nothing, all at odd angles to each other. Seraphim. Where there's one, there's five, I remembered someone once saying. I counted. Seven of them were here.

One had walked right next to Apricot, standing just a bit too close to her for my comfort. She seemed fine with it, though.

The door opened again, and bright green hair poked through the gap in the door. "Oh, man, those quiet dudes are here again..." The hair disappeared and the door shut.

The bartender put his head in this hands. "Apricot, I'll give you a free drink if you can make them go away...."

"I dunno if you should have 'em do that." The waitress sounded pensive. "I know a guy that tried to rob 'em and he ended up walkin' in front of a bus. A movin' bus if you know what I mean."

"Well, we're not going to rob them." Apricot gave the bartender a look and then glanced meaningfully at Rei and I. The bartender rolled his eyes, "Oh... all right. I'll give all of you one free drink each, then. But not the imported Scotch!"

"Aw, man!" I said. Rei echoed me from the other side of the room. Apricot doesn't much like scotch, but she knows that we do.

Apricot turned to the one next to her, he looked, uhm... young. Twelve or thirteen, maybe? I'm not good at age guessing, but he was really young, shorter and more slender than Apricot herself, which is saying a lot as she's on the Street Diet.

He looked up at her, and she asked, "What do you want?"

The boy abruptly headed for the door.

His entire... pack? Flock? What do you call... oh... hm... choir of Seraphim V'ed in behind him.

Rei and I looked at each other. He was the one that shook his head. But we got up, even as the barkeep poured three cheap beers into disposable cups. Apricot beamed and took hers. I rolled my eyes at her taste in beer, and took mine. Rei left his to a mutter of "What, not good enough for ya?" from the barkeep.

As soon as I got out the door, I poured my beer on the street for the spirits. Apricot once observed that you never know who might be grateful. I had to agree.

The choir of Seraphim moved up along the sidewalk, nearly in a V-formation, and people got out of their way quickly. Rei and I consciously worked a V-formation behind Apricot. I liked rearguard action, and he was good at looking forward and getting a good idea of what was coming.

The little kids led us to an alleyway. And from the alleyway came very low, growly voices. Then there was a very feminine, high-pitched scream.

Apricot rounded the corner at a run. We followed.

There were six teenage Goblins, big ones. Not quite as big as the Trolls but big enough. They were dressed in the teal colors of one of the really minor street gangs, and they'd cornered a pretty girl in clothes way too good for this part of town. Her hair shone deep, brilliant red.

They were teasing her, touching her as she fled from side to side in the end of the alley.

Apricot planted herself and said, "I think she's not enjoying your attention, boys. Leave off."

The leader sneered as he turned. I looked to Apricot and mouthed, "Go?"

She nodded.

I hit him before he'd even drawn breath for his comeback. Given the size and power of my opponents, I pulled Seishin Bunretsu from my heart, but left her in her sheath. The reach and weight and heft of her would be good enough.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw darkness flicker into existence by the red-headed girl, it enveloped her, and disappeared. Good old Rei. With the innocent out of the way, I got down to my part of the job.

Moment later, the alley was clear of all the goblins but their leader, most of them had run after they felt exactly what I could bring to the party. Still, one of them had cracked some of my ribs, another made it hard for me to walk without a limp. He'd gotten my knee harder than I liked. But I grabbed the back of the jacket collar of the leader of these rock-headed gangers, and dragged him, scrabbling and cursing, to Apricot.

She started questioning him.

"Why did the Seraphim lead us here?"

"Uhm... dunno. She ain't one of 'em. The pretty was askin' about some goblin girl and wavin' reward money around. So... uhm... thought we'd have a little fun and get loot. Didn't mean any harm!"

"You're stupid! You don't mix pleasure and business!"

"Uhm... we weren't doin' none a dat! Uhm... I don't think."

"What do you do with money when you get it?" Apricot was more patient than I ever could have been with the big bruiser.

"Uhm... buy beer, party, eat lots, and... go out wit da girls!"

"Okay, so you were tryin' to go out with the girls and make the money at the same time, that's all I'm saying. You can't mix the two."

"Oh! I get it now. So no mixing making the money with spending the money, huh?"

"Right."

"How are we supposed to make the money if you steals the girl? And it's not fair bringin' in an elf to a goblin fight!"

I rolled my eyes, pushed back my hair, and fingered the rounded top of my ears.

"Oh, MAN! Beaten by an elf-poseur!" The big guy slapped himself on the forehead so hard I almost thought it was a gunshot. "Promise me you won't tell the guys?"

Apricot laughed. "Just say 'thank you, Apricot' and you can go on your way."

The big guy started patting down all his pockets. "Now I gotta give you somethin', right?" He pulled a key from one pocket and handed to Apricot, who dimpled and pinned it to her jacket in formation with the key she'd gotten from the other ganger as well. He gave her a half-decent bow. "Thank you, Apricot."

He walked out of the alley way. A shot gun blast boomed. The shot took him right through the chest.


	2. Chapter 2

**Author's Note**:

_There are a few great play quotes that a listener caught, some of which I couldn't quite turn into story as neatly as I would have liked. The best of which was the following:  
_

_GM: I dunno, does an alleyway have an inherent sense of justice?  
Rei: Yes. It is an alleyway that _**_I've_**_ been in.  
GM: Good point._

* * *

Rei saw Le Merle Blanc rush in. Her dandelion white hair glowed above the flying white of her canvas duster, mirror gray eyes shifting colors as she ran. Her slender limbs always looked like anyone could just snap them, but he'd never seen her even flinch when hit. She jumped the first goblin ganger. Under the cover of her entrance, Rei stepped to the side and appeared right where he was needed, right up against the lovely girl with the gem red hair. He engulfed her in his long coat and with her eyes hidden, he disappeared with her, and appeared further up and across the street from the alleyway. He could watch the entrance from there.

After attempting to release her from the folds of his coat, he found that she burrowed right back in. She leaned her slender, soft length against him and sighed brokenly. She was beautiful, pale skin, high end party dress, high heels, and that jewel bright red hair. Certainly not fit for this part of town.

"I'm Rei. Pleased to meet you," Rei ventured.

"I'm very pleased to meet you." She breathed very deeply, décolletage swelling alarmingly. "I'm Ruby."

Indeed you are, thought Rei, but said nothing.

"I have to find my sister! She's wandering around here, somewhere..." Ruby sighed.

Rei pulled out his PDA and showed her the picture from the wanted poster.

"Why do you have a picture of my sister?" Ruby sounded more puzzled and surprised than upset.

"It's from a poster we found on a lamppost. Did you put them up?"

"No, why is someone else looking for her? I'm just trying to get her home. Have you tried calling the number?"

"No."

"Oh! You haven't found her yet. That makes sense. You do this for the monetary rewards?"

"This is what I do," Rei said quietly.

"Does it pay well?" Ruby asked, snuggling in. She seemed to imply that, perhaps, that he could get better paid working for better people.

He hid a smile. "Well enough." Out of the corner of his eye, he watched two feather boys on a single minibike pull up by the mouth of the alley the others were in.

"You do have a very nice coat," she purred, rubbing up against it and, consequently, him as well.

"It's a family heirloom," he said absently. One of the feather boys was fumbling with something under his coat.

"Still very nice..."

It was a shotgun.

Ruby yelped as Rei firmly set her aside. He yelled, "STOP!!"

He was just a little too late, as the feather boy just brought it up and fired on the first figure to come out of the alley.

* * *

I moved. I swung wide of the corner to be able to see the threat, and saw Rei in black, like the vengeance come, his coat flying as he nabbed the guy on the stupid mini-bike. The one with the shotgun swung it at me. He looked as if he were moving through solid water. I didn't need it, but the squawk from the guy on the bike made him flinch.

And I was on him like fire on wood. He was still trying to train the sawed-off at me, when I grabbed it and shoved it down, sliding my hand from the barrel to the stock. The idiot fired it at the street, and buckshot went everywhere, some of it bouncing into my leg. I growled, the clinic was going to be so pissed off at me.

I continued the momentum of my motion, twisting the stock to break his hold on the thing, my elbow coming up to use my upper arm as a fulcrum to apply a shoulder lock that had him bending forward so fast he nearly planted his face in the sidewalk he'd just shot. I yanked up on his wrist and helped him. When he went limp, I got a better arm lock on him, and led him back to the alley.

Rei had an easier time of it. We're about the same height, and when no one thinks I'm listening I hear them call us Apricot's pair of blackbirds. It fits well enough I don't dissuade anyone. Ever since Apricot called me her "Le Merle Blanc" the name has stuck. So Rei is her blackbird and I'm her white blackbird.

When we got back, it was pretty obvious to me that the goblin leader had had it. He was twitching a little, breath rattling, one hand gentle on Apricot's arm, and it looked like he was just happy to have the company. But Apricot's face was set in a determined frown.

Uh oh.

She looked up when we arrived, one tear on her cheek. Her voice went hard, short, "What is this about?"

If the boys had any sense, they'd duck their heads and pray, but either they didn't know about our Apricot, or they just didn't have any more sense than feathers.

"Five hundred nuyen."

"Five hundred nuyen for shotgunning a guy out?" The outrage flowed from Apricot, palpable to me and mine.

The guy Rei was holding shrugged. "What do we care? They just said the next person out of that alley gets shot. We get the money, and we're good."

"They didn't even give you a description of who to shoot?"

"Naw. Just shoot whatever walked out first. My brother got him just fine, and we've got the hard cold. It's like free money." The driver smirked.

"Well... I hope your five hundred nuyen was worth it. Blanc, hold him. I need his hands." Apricot sounded flat.

The way she said it made my eyes close for just a moment. Then all ten of us put our strength together, and the poor little feather boy had no chance at all. He screamed and kicked and flailed. For once I didn't really care that he was kicking the shit out of my shins. He deserved at least that.

"Use the monofilament," I said.

It was easier for Apricot to handle than my sword. The monofilament had no soul to endanger with this particular problem.

Apricot tied off the guy's forearms with the ripped halves of one of Ruby's scarves. She plucked the control button for the filament from my sleeve, and then did it in one, clean slice. The air filled with screams, curses, and vows of vengeance. We'd heard worse. The hands fell with a wet meat thud onto the pavement.

Two huge rats scurried out from the garbage cans, and with their big, yellow teeth and little sharp claws, they harried, yanked, and pulled those two hands away into the darkness.

That shut the guy up.

Rei let go of his brother, who was crying with rage as he came at me, but I held still and gently gave the slumped form of his handless brother to him.

Apricot said softly, "Look nothing's free. There's no such thing as free money."

The boy spit at her feet.

"Hey," Apricot added. "We'll take you to the clinic."

He shook his head. "No. He's my brother, I'll take care of him." The feather boy slung his brother over his shoulder and walked out the alley and swore. Someone had stolen his mini-bike. He turned and trudged off.

I went out onto the street, and cast about. There. The shiny casings from the shotgun shells. They had given Apricot something, and just hadn't known. I picked up the still warm shells, went back to the alley, and handed them to her. She sat back down by the teenage goblin's side.

"I guess I have a goblin, now," she said quietly.

The goblin boy had passed out, but his breathing was solid now, not that on and off stutter of someone dying.

I sighed and stretched my sore knee. Rei got the first hold on him and got him half up before I went under my side of the big boy.

When we got to the clinic, they were all, "Didn't we just... oh my GOD!"

It's nice to have good attention. This time I saw Rei actually talking to the receptionist and pass her something that made her smile. I never dig too deep. Just like they never dig too deep with me, but it's kinda cool thinking dream boys might carry platinum credsticks.

This time they put me out to take care of me, and as I was going down, in the background someone was talking. "You can always check, and get weird shit like 'I'll trade you hands for an eye.' Man, Craig's List gets creepier every year."

* * *

We headed back to the bar and found it still pretty empty. There were no more Seraphim, so the bartender was didn't look exactly happy, but not quite as glum as before.

"So, we followed the Seraphim, did they come back? They all just disappeared from where they'd taken us." Apricot greeted the bartender with the question.

"Haven't seen 'em since. You can come and... uhm... follow 'em any time." The barkeeper frowned in thought and then came out with a doozy. "Hey, Apricot, you think you could attract a crowd?"

I cringed, remembering the last crowd Apricot had attracted.

"Sure. But, what do you want the crowd to do?" Apricot sounded cheerful as she asked the far more important question as far as I was concerned.

"Uhm... drink! Be happy, and uhm... buy food!" The barkeep's answer was pretty straightforward.

"Sure!" Apricot said, and she started talking.

The door started opening, and goblins started coming in. Big ones. And they started ordering drinks. That made the bartender kind of happy. What made him really happy is that they stayed polite after a few pitchers of their favorite brew.

"So, can I have a place to stay, tonight?" Apricot asked hopefully.

The tender shook his head. "Sorry. I don't know of a place you could have right now, or anyone looking for a roommate."

"How about some food?" Apricot wheedled.

Rei coughed. The food here was all greasy bar food, stuff that I wasn't sure I wanted to have, either. I just looked at Rei and, with just his one eye, he avoided my look more easily than usual.

"I can buy dinner," Rei said.

"Sushi?" Apricot asked hopefully, cute dark eyes gazing hopefully up into Rei's eye.

He sighed. "Sure. Sushi."

"Yay!" She danced about and then said to the bartender, "Rei's buying sushi!"

The bartender smirked and looked at Rei. "Hey, you can afford to buy drinks, then, huh?"

And so he did. Apricot went into the backroom and changed out of her bloody clothing. I sometimes wonder how she does that so naturally. As if getting splashed in blood was just the natural order of things when dealing with whatever it is that she talks with. Though, perhaps, I shouldn't be the one to talk. My duster was as white as flour, ashes, or clouds. In my line of work, getting a splash or two is the natural order of things. That my duster likes... eating it... that's something else.

Rei took us to Ichiro's, a little sushi bar in the U-District, cheap for the student clientele.

Apricot cheerfully returned the greeting with the sushi chef and, soon, he and she were chatting like old friends. He switched to English about halfway through and started talking about how he really wanted to go back to Japan to train. He'd been working towards that for some time.

He and Apricot helped me pick out white things to eat on a whim of mine. Scallops, albacore, white fish, and yellowtail were all tasty and fun to eat. We all got our little platters of sushi when there was the sound of motorcycles outside the door.

Six Japanese guys with kanji tattoo'ed onto their arms came in and sat on either side of us at the sushi bar. I was glad we'd sat Apricot in the middle of the two of us, as the boys started getting rude, harassing the sushi bar man, and ordering strange things.

The sushi man just accepted the abuse meekly and served them what they asked for, half of which they didn't even bother eating.

Stupid boys. But they were wearing colors, and looked like they were trying out for Yak Jr. status. I studied the tattoos and wrinkled my nose. Quietly I asked Apricot, "Does that say what I think it does?"

She nodded and hid a giggle behind her fingers. "Yeah.... it says 'Drown for Speed', not 'Die for Speed'."

I shook my head.

Another engine pulled up, the whisper quiet of an all electric vehicle, nothing but the sound of rubber on pavement. A girl in the same style of clothing as the boys that had come in but with clean seams and silkier cloth came into the restaurant. She was as Japanese as Apricot, and walked like she could fight if she had to, but didn't have to that often.

She walked up to Rei. Apricot and I exchanged looks and grinned and watched.

"I hear you're looking for a girl," she said, having to tilt her head up to look at him.

"Yes."

"Stop it."

"Why?"

"Cause I'm asking nicely."

"I appreciate it, but that's not enough of a reason. I help people."

"Is there some way we can make it work? Just bring her to me..."

Rei shook his head. "I'm afraid not."

She shrugged and persisted. "If you find the girl first, at least let me be first to make an offer." She pulled a pen from behind her ear. I frowned. It hadn't been there to start. With the felt-tipped marker, she wrote a number on Rei's hand. Then she smiled and handed Apricot the pen.

So she did know whom she was really dealing with.

She turned on her heel and walked out of the restaurant.

The leader of the bully boys looked to the bar man and nodded at Rei. "Hey, he's treating."

Rei rolled his eyes, but nodded to the suddenly much happier bar man. The six punks walked out and there was the cough and roar of engines hauling them away.

Apricot studied the pen. It was a nice little giveaway. "Kiyatxunl Imports" was written along the side, along with an address, phone number, and Net address. Apricot tucked it away. She looked up Rei and I. "So it looks like other people are interested in that girl you tried to save, Rei. Where do we start?"

We all went back to the corner where Rei first saw the girl, by the Goblin slums. The three of us went out in widening circles, asking if someone had seen the girl, the monster, or the magician.

There were two elves who nodded at Apricot's request. "Oh, sure. We saw the monster. The slaying of that beaste should make for an excellent story. Follow us, we shall take you to the beaste, the master of the beaste, and the little girl they seek."

Rei gave me a glance as the two elves headed into a basement. Like I said, he likes looking ahead...

A group of elves appeared around us as soon as the door closed.

"What are you doing?" Apricot asked, before they could do anything.

And, like magic, they just answered her question. "We are looking for the goblin girl, Yamako. We wish to help her complete her quest, whatever it is."

"What if her quest is to destroy the city?" Apricot asked, frowning.

"Well, she is the heroine of this story and we are her knights. We must help her complete her quest no matter what. And if you aren't going to do the same thing, we must fight you."

With that announcement, they attacked.

I drew _Seishin Bunretsu_ from my heart. She came singing from her sheath and gleamed light in all directions from her shattered pieces. I'd made enough once to try and have her re-forged from the pieces. The blacksmith had managed to put all the pieces together, but admitted defeat in the end. Her cracks never completely disappeared, even under fire and hammer on stone rather than cold iron. He admitted she had a magic he wasn't strong enough to cover and commended me on the odd strength of my soul.

She sang through the air in minor and augmented chords, or at least, that's what Harold said in the back of my head. He was the musician of us all.

The elves admired her light and song, and then we fought.

The fight made three of the girls in my head start giggling helplessly, so I wasn't quite as fast as I usually am, but... it was funny, too. What made it even funnier for me was Apricot cheering me on and ooo'ing and aaaahing the spectacular wide parries and blocks, the big attacks and the graceful stop thrusts.

This particular batch of elves were far more into the form of the fight than functionality. No attacks from behind, no strokes out of sequence, Mother forbid a parry not be followed by a riposte. Rei looked utterly bemused to be caught in the midst of this, and he hacked away manfully and tried not to laugh when an elven lady collapsed gracefully his curved sword found her arm. I found Huyu responding and going into formal kendo mode with Seishin Bunretsu's manic encouragement. So I sat back and watched for a while, but stepped in when the elves started to use _thaelol _sequences in their attacks.

There are advantages to having been an Elven princess, I guess.

At least they lost beautifully.

And the leader started going into this beautiful, flowery speech in High Elven about how they were all going to get stronger and come after us again just to prove their dedication to the art of battle...

I stifled a yawn, no reason to let them know I understood a word of what they were saying. There were reasons I had my ears docked.

Apricot cheered and clapped when they posed for her in attitudes of defeated dejection. "Well, at least you didn't lose the girl, since we didn't have her to begin with, but that was a really excellent fight!"

"Oh well." A careless wave of a beautiful white hand, a flip of silver hair, and the leader waved away that detail. "Nothing of value can be gained without struggle."

Then Rei stepped in and said, "While we might not help her with her quest, I do want to protect her. Just so you know."

The silver head bowed. "You are brave warriors. You wish to find her and protect her from the evil-hearted ones dragging the monster that reeks of pain. We have had a marvelous fight with the Spirit of Justice and have been defeated." A graceful bow in Rei's direction. "So we must grant you a boon, we happen to have the number of the flame-haired sister of the girl everyone is seeking. Would that do as a boon?"

"Sure," Rei answered in his usual manner. "Can I have yours as well?"

The leader laughed and bowed his head. Rei's phone chimed a single pure note. They flowed out of the room with graceful bows to Rei. I bowed back to the last one and saw him falter, as I bowed the exact bow of a rogue knight to those who are her betters.


	3. Chapter 3

When the last elf left, Rei pulled a pile of phones from his pockets.

"So we have this collection of phones and numbers now. Do you remember which ones came from where?"

"Well these four phones came from the goblin boys," I volunteered.

"I got this one from the bike of the feather boys that shot the leader," Rei said calmly. "I figured they had to have been called right before the job, so that they knew when and where to go."

"How about the girl you rescued?" Apricot asked.

"I think her phone was an implant. With that dress, where would she have carried it?"

Rei took all the phones, and compared all the numbers and looked up what information he could.

The flyer number turned out to be Kityatxunl Imports again. The number the girl had written on Rei's hand turned out to be registered to a Japanese girl. The phone he'd picked up from one of the feather boys that had hit the orc in the alley had yielded a number that could not be easily identified. And the number the elves had given him yielded a number to a licensed companion service with a mail drop box.

Apricot looked a little wilted after all that. "I really need a place to stay for the night. Rei... can you?"

Rei nodded. We headed for a hotel with solid rooms and a bathtub. Turned out they only had the honeymoon suite vacant, with a huge soaking tub. Apricot immediately started filling the tub.

"I'm going out," Rei said and whisked out the door in a whisper of black.

Apricot giggled. "We get the tub, then."

"Sure." I sprawled in a chair, as Apricot hummed happily to herself as she got into the tub. I picked up _Seishin Bunretsu_ and turned her lacquered sheath about in my hands. I contemplated the layering before I turned her and sank her slowly back into my heart. It's handier than a hip belt, and gets her by securities I wouldn't normally test.

I still, sometimes, wonder if it was my blood that made the blood pact stick, when with any other gang it would have just been a way to get our morale up before the big fight. For a bunch of teens and early tweens, when you promise that you'll be together forever, you don't really have a good idea how long that could be. I should have known better, but I'd been so busy forgetting the magic inherent in my heritage.

"Hey, the tub's full."

It was good to hear Apricot sounding happy again.

I left my coat out in the room, and then went into the bathroom and stripped off. I carefully set my bullet charm on the countertop. I caught a glance of my water-colored eyes in the big mirror in the bathroom. The light gleamed off silver tattoos I'd had set into my skin all along my arms and shoulders. They and the ones I set into the skin of my legs simulated a razorgirl's mods, to explain my speed and strength, and wouldn't wash off. Nearly no one ever gets close enough to see that they were actually elven runes set so small and thickly that they were nearly impossible to read. I slid into the hot water and sighed and relaxed for the first time all day.

"Thirteen," Apricot said as she traced things in the steam on the glass.

I tilted my head attentively and waited for more.

"Thirteen. You've taken out the three guys on the street, the six Goblin gangers, and two of the elven fighters. You have to take out two more people and then we'll be done."

I blinked at her and shrugged and nodded. "Sure."

Apricot smiled and then we dropped into talking about the day and how weird it was and how cool Rei was, before washing each others backs and helping each other with our hair. My dandelion puff goes all flat and transparent when it gets wet, but she said that it felt silky underwater.

We got out of the bath, dried off, and got dressed in yukata for sleeping in.

I carefully put the flattened and distorted bullet on its chain back on. It was a bullet that had missed a man, and Apricot had once talked it into trying to persuade other bullets to miss me too. I like to think it works.

She sounded so happy when she settled in under the covers and in the bed that I had to smile. I settled by her and closed my eyes, and she giggled a little before turning over and settling. She likes watching me sleep, since elves don't need to. I've never figured out if elves never have to sleep because we have forever to sort our memories and forever to remember. Or, perhaps, since mortals sometimes use their sleep and dreams to practice their fears, that we don't have to practice. We just deal with them, or leave them to rot in time.

Soon I heard soft snoring.

I grinned and turned on the entertainment system with the sound off, flipped through the on demand menus and found and watched "Seven Samurai". The black and white starkness of the story always get to me. Old habits die hard, nearly as hard as some of these humans, so fleeting and so intense.

Hours later, I switched to video games and hit the fifteenth level of "Stranglehold". Yeah, I'll admit I love those old games.

Then Apricot's eyes began to flicker behind her eyelids. Dreaming. I straightened, saved my progress onto my own 'stick, and turned the system off. Apricot's dreams are dangerous, sometimes. Sometimes people like Rei appear the next day. She still believes she dreamed him. I'm not quite so sure. Sure... magic plays us, but sometimes it's easier to have it just be fate, that maybe a guy like him needed to be on the street, making it cleaner, and maybe needed us to help him. Or maybe we needed him?

She started frowning. Then her breath caught, her eyes flickered faster and faster, her breathing got heavier, and her hands fisted hard on her pillows. Suddenly she started, hard, and I couldn't take it, I shook her gently.

"Apricot, wake up. You're having a bad dream."

She lurched out of sleep. "Oh!"

I held her quietly. Haltingly she told me that she'd gone to sleep wishing that she could help Rei get his eye back. Then she started by dreaming that she was Rei, as he went out and walked around, talking to people and looking for the girl. And then she realized she was also seeing from the monster's viewpoint, seeing a street, and then a hotel. And in the hotel, its viewpoint crawled into an elevator, and then out on to our floor of the building. It crept down the hallway and stopped at the door of our room.

"It was weird. It was a little like I could see from both of Rei's eyes. And both viewpoints were coming up to our room."

I sighed. "Well, I haven't heard anything. You want me to check the hallway?"

Shivering, she nodded. "Please."

"All right."

I did not say that I was doing it to show her that there was nothing there because, with Apricot, there often _were _things in the closet, under the bed, or, in this case, out in the hallway. And half of why she likes me around with her is because I act like I believe. It's too dangerous not to.

I walked to the door, put my hand on the doorknob; and a huge clawed hand came through the door and grabbed my throat.

I choked. But then I twisted my body, grabbed its wrist, planted my feet against the doorframe on either side, and used my legs to pull the rest of the monster through the door. Its tightening hold on my throat managed to keep me from planting my head into the floor, so I risked letting go of it with my right hand.

I pulled my sword from my heart and sunk her blade into the monster's arm. It screamed and let go of me. I dropped and scuttled back. It bellowed in rage and pain, and finished destroying the door.

I did not I like what I saw.

There were four street samurai out there along with a mage in far too nice a lined coat. The samurai was far too well equipped for street sams. They were corporate ones with that heavy look and nothing on 'em to identify exactly where they were from. Someone had gone to the trouble of disguising them

To my relief, the elevator doors opened to release Rei. He attacked, curved blades whirling.

Then Apricot started talking, and everything got confused.

I thought I sliced open the head of the monster, and pulled out an eyeball the same brown with green shot through it as the one Rei had left. I tossed it to him. Then something happened, and the monster screamed and drifted away into mist on the mirrors of the bathroom.

That was when the corporate samurai started shooting at me.

"Damnit, It's bad manners to bring guns to a sword fight!" I yelled.

I switched up on them as much as I could. Combined with the close quarters and Rei's surprise attack, we threw them enough that I disabled two and Rei got the other two. Who knows? Maybe the bullet charm did its work, too.

As Mr. Smith would have said, a reality check was drawn from the bank of John Woo. Furniture, walls, and a few windows got trashed, but no one was killed, including us, which is always a bonus. My white coat soaked up the blood happily, and I saw Apricot's eyes turn to it. I wondered if she heard something I couldn't as it turned pristine white and mended itself.

Rei managed to get a lock on the mage.

The mage saw all his guys sprawled every which way around the room. He slumped.

"All right. Spill," growled Rei.

The mage spilled. Turned out he was freelance and on a job. Aztechnology wanted Yamako, the goblin girl he'd been harassing. They wanted her blood.

I shuddered. When they said that they meant it literally, heart on the altar and all that. They're... like that. They'd offered him a juicy contract to bring her in. And then he'd been surprised to find that Sabuto Knowledge Systems which was covered by Kiyatxunl Imports, had also put out a contract on her along with a few other companies. He was just sub-contracting through them as well.

Apricot ignored Rei's conversation with the mage. She was talking to the mirror. I looked into the surface and saw the monster with its dozen eyes. It had been busy since it had eaten Rei's eye.

I leaned in closer to the mirror, and saw tiny runes in liquid silver, running around the edge. They looked like binding and holding spells.

Rei had taken his eye-patch off and was staring down at the mage with both his eyes intact. I halfway wondered if it was Apricot's dream that had put it back, my cutting it out that put it back, or Rei defeating the mage that had made him give it back... and perhaps all those things are the same.

Apricot sighed after her murmurs. "I can't... it's made of... yuck. It's a spirit of atrocity, hungry. It's not really good or evil in and of itself, but it was made by doing something really, really bad. I can free it, but it'll probably just eat the mage since he did the sin that created it. I could banish it, but then justice wouldn't be done by it. And I can't be the one to let it just eat the guy, that would be killing him."

The mage sneered at her. "You don't have the guts to deal with it?"

"No." Apricot said simply. "It would cost me too much. I know when not to get in over my head."

She thought for a while and I couldn't help her with this one. Finally she said, "Would giving him to the elves be okay?"

I blinked at that, taken aback and then thought about it. "Well, they'd probably do the right thing, and it would be on them to correct the balance, not us anymore. Shadows, they might even look on it as a favor."

Rei handed Apricot his phone, the number for the elves we'd met already punched in and ready to go. She hit "Send" and five minutes later, a whole band of elves showed up.

They took the mage with them, and carefully took the mirror in the bathroom off of the wall. The leader gave Apricot a small hand mirror as a token of the boon that they owed her, in return for the lovely monster and the mage upon whom they could wreck a right and thorough justice. Or maybe art. He slurred it and looked at me, and I could have sworn...

I went and broke the DocWagon bracelet on each of the downed samurai. Each one I did sent a little coup ticker to my 'stick. Not a bad way to make a profit. They would be taken care of.

Apricot cocked her head at the bodies and she grinned at me. "Didn't I say? Two more. Thirteen. We're done for tonight, I think."

I blinked and then nodded. "Good. 'Bout time."

The attack had happened at dawn. Apricot didn't say, but I know that some favors run out when the sun rises. In any case, since it was already morning, we gave up on our wrecked room and went to a diner.

Over coffee and eggs (even a Ghost Chicken is still just a chicken) and toast, Apricot asked Rei, "How did you know we were in trouble?"

He frowned. "I started seeing things. Things that weren't in front of me. When I caught a glimpse of that mage, I figured I was looking out of my other eye. When I recognized the hotel, I ran."

"Thank you," I said.

Both his eyes flickered up to look at me, and then he smirked and bowed his head. "You're welcome."

* * *

Rei went out to look for the girl again, figuring she would need some help and with his little gift of being where he was needed, it would bring him right in on her.

He was right. Before we were even completely done with the free breakfast, he called Apricot. "I found her." He sent the GPS coordinates, and we went there directly.

"Hey," I asked. "Why didn't you do that in the first place?"

He shrugged. "I suspect that if my eye was still the monster's, that I would have led it right to her as well."

Apricot, as always, got her to talk. Sometimes I think Apricot could have gotten a rock to talk and tell her its life story.

Yamako was a twelve-year-old goblin girl. She was big now, with the big ears, raw bones, warts, excellent night vision, and great big fangs. The ruder ones would have called her an ork, as she was a smaller goblin. If I had to guess, I would have said she might have been a mix of Hispanic and Japanese ancestry.

Her birth family gave her up before she could remember, and she'd always been a goblin as far as she knew. The Clarks, her last foster family, had been good to her. When people started trying to hunt her down, she'd left that family as well, to keep them safe.

Yamako looked up at Rei, eyes wide. "I'm sorry I ran away when you were trying to save me."

He just shrugged. "There was a monster."

She nodded.

"S'all right." He awkwardly patted her on the hair.

She smiled at him.

Rei showed her a picture of Ruby, and Yamako squeaked. "How do you know her?"

"She your sister?"

"Well, yeah! She was with the Clarks, too."

"She was looking for you."

Yamako's big brown eyes got even bigger. "Oh no... She was out here looking for me?"

Rei nodded. I relaxed a little, at least the little brat knew something of how dangerous it would be for her sister.

"Maybe tell her you're okay and to stop looking?" Rei looked a little dubious.

Yamako sighed. "If she knows I'm alive, she might not stop."

We all nodded at that. But after a few moment of silence, Apricot hmm'ed softly, tapping her toes.

Apricot caught the little girl's gaze with her own, and asked, "Well, what do you want to have happen?"

Yamako blushed. "I... I really want my real parents to show up and save me. But... I guess that's not going to happen."

We were all a little silent at that, but Apricot was bravest and nodded. "Probably not. But we can look for them if that's what you really want."

The dark eyes in that bone marred, big-eared face nodded. "Yes, please."

_TBC?_

iThanks for reading... there may well be another session in the future, to figure out if Yamako gets her wish.../i


End file.
